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We will work actively to protect the people, environment, knowledge, culture, language and resources important to Ngāi Tahu for future generations.

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Transcript

"When you're a Māori student, as sad as it sounds, the expectations for you to fail are very high, so I think those are the kind of expectations we wanted to push away."

"Oh when I first arrived here my goal was to pretty much just to have fun and just eat my lunch I guess, so that was fourth form when I arrived. And then fifth form started, my maths was started dropping out of school and then I just started realizing it's getting a bit serious now."

"Level 1 was like a hard year for me, I was just didn't care anymore, it was just like, 'Oh school, I want to drop out.'"

"There was only one teacher that actually taught me and that was my English teacher and all my other teachers just thought I was naughty as and sort of excluded me from everyone else. But when I came into the TKP system it was just no matter like how you dress or what you look like or how brainy or dumb you are they still treat you the same as everyone else. And that's what made me want to be someone."

"There's like been a lot of times when I just thought I didn't want to go or thought I couldn't make it but then teachers are always there to encourage you, always had my mates and then my parents were just a huge influence on that sort of thing."

"Some teachers they teach to the whole class, they don't look at the individuals, so it's kind of easier when they look to you as a person and then see what help you need, like not as a class because everyone's different."

"They have so much faith in you, almost like the expectations are so high that you don't want to let them down. So you keep pushing yourself until you get there."

"She did everything she could and she gave me extra help and just really believed that I could do it, and I felt as if if I hadn't achieved the marks that she wanted me to then I'd let her down."

"This place is home pretty much, the teachers become family, yea, and it's easy to talk to them, it's easier to get along with them, they know what you want, and they'll help you no matter what."

"For those kind of people that believe in you, that take the time after school to kind of um, to kind of help you."

"If you fall behind, say like my history teacher this year I was struggling, I was falling behind and he said, 'You know I'm here during lunch times, after school if you need anything,' same with my physics teacher."

"She was just the best, like she's one of those teachers where she can give you this look and you're just like, 'Okay I'll do it,' like, like she was like you can do this."

"They don't have to do any of this stuff but, yea, they just do it and I think it's awesome that they do it, especially towards the Māori students in this school. Yea, it's really like a, really gives us like a sense of whānau in this school."

"I forgot to study because I had touch and netball. As soon as I came back and I told them they were willing to help me and try and get a little bit extra in there before the exams and I ended up still getting in the top 21 of our grades so I was pretty happy with that."

"I used to be the dumb guy, oh no I still am but yea, I used to be the dumbest guy, but na yea, I've gotten better with English and I got all of my credits and everyone thought I wouldn't so yea."

"They have pushed me, they've given me motivation but also their stories as well, from when they were younger and how they went to university and all of that, and it kind of, um, kind of just made me want to do well as well."

"It was cool like looking, like going into junior classes and seeing the same teachers that you have but they've just like improved on what they're trying to do with you. And like you can just see the relationships starting to build and all that sort of thing."

"Students expect the teachers to make the environment and learning good for them instead of them making it good for themselves, it's like they just come and depend too much on the teachers where it's a sort of a half way thing, like the teacher will meet you half way and you meet them the other half."

"They want to know about us and our background, how we learn and we want to know about them as well."

"Because my mum is so proud of me, because of what I've done and stayed in school, like my whole family, I get hugs."

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Student voices / Interviews / Videos / Te Kotahitanga - Home - Te Kotahitanga

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“When you’re a Māori student, as sad as it sounds, the expectations for you to fail are very high, so I think those are the kind of expectations we wanted to push away.”

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Curricula don't provide for Aboriginal languages

At schools in Western Australia, for example, the school curriculum includes up to three Asian languages, but there is no formal inclusion of any Aboriginal language. If such a language is taught it is by agreement between individual schools and Aboriginal language teachers or speakers [1].

But student numbers are encouraging, with 6,400 WA students studying an Aboriginal language compared to 4,000 students learning Mandarin [1].

Janet Hayden, Nyoongar Elder and language teacher, knows students want to learn an Aboriginal language.

"They wanted more and more, and when we left the teachers all said 'please come back, don't forget us', and that was in a white community. One very distinguished gentleman came up to me and he had tears in his eyes and said I had opened his eyes to Aboriginal culture and what Aboriginal people were all about." [1]

They were just so hungry for the Nyoongar language we taught in school. We taught them the whole program and they just loved it.-Janet Hayden, Nyoongar Elder and language teacher [1]

Video: Reawakening Australia's Aboriginal languages

Students at St John's High School in Western Sydney learn basics of the Wuradjiru language, including animal names and how to address family.

Benefits of teaching an Aboriginal language

Teaching Aboriginal languages increases the esteem and pride of Aboriginal students, and it has a positive impact on their attendance and participation in school [2].

At Woolgoolga High School, in North Coast NSW, all year 7 students are required to learn Gumbaynggirr, a local traditional Aboriginal language. The school's Aboriginal education worker, Jo Hine, has noticed that Woolgoolga's Aboriginal students have become noticeably more confident and "more likely to speak up in class." [3]

Some research indicates that it improves their physical and mental health. People who have lost their identity are quite conflicted.

Not enough teachers

But in 2013, there were only 15 Aboriginal teachers of Aboriginal language in public schools in New South Wales [4], although languages were in a "critical state" and the state was home to more than 200,000 Aboriginal people.

We see the teaching of languages in schools as being critical to the maintenance of Indigenous languages and to the maintenance of our overall cultural identity as Australians.-Andrew Thompson, spokesman Western Australian Education Department [1]

The antidote to intolerance

At Vincentia High School, about 190 kms south of Sydney in NSW, students are taught Dhurga, the language of the Yuin Nation [5].

Classes are compulsory for every student in Year Eight, Indigenous or non-Indigenous. By the time students receive their School Certificate they have undergone 100 hours of Dhurga instruction.

In those 100 hours they will have learnt that Dhurga is one language amongst hundreds of Aboriginal languages and given a different perspective through which to view Australia.

Jonathan Hill, a Dhurga teacher at Vincentia High School, reckons that "this type of education is the antidote to the tide of intolerance that infects the modern mind. By sharing this ancient knowledge with our youth, we are giving them the chance to empathise and engage with our Aboriginal heritage." [5]

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At schools in Western Australia, for example, the school curriculum includes up to three Asian languages, but there is no formal inclusion of any Aboriginal language. If such a language is taught it is by agreement between individual schools and Aboriginal language teachers or speakers [1].

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7News - Aboriginal language alive in school

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Year Two students at Pulteney Grammar are using Kaurna words in their everyday classes, and now they want to spread the word. Marija Jovanovic reports.

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More than 250 Aboriginal languages were once spoken across Australia. While many have been lost, some schools are trying hard to reawaken others that are also endangered. Duration: 02:06

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An early insight into how one of New Zealands largest Tertiary Education Providers Te Wananga o Aotearoa came into existance. Meet some of the key founders and discover why this is truly a special place.

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Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education

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Youth Change Professional Development Workshops

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Strong Smart & Deadly @ School Boys Group

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Dr Chris Sarra: Student attendance strategies

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This is how you fix school attendance without cutting welfare payments. Much cheaper. More profoundly effective

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National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults

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Kotahitanga - Improving the educational achievements of Māori in mainstream secondary schools

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Over 30 years ago when Russell Bishop started teaching he was struck by a single question: Why did so many Māori students start out well but fail as they went through school?

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Effects of Bilingual Education on Development

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Maori in Education. Why is it important? How effective is teaching/learning Te Reo Maori? What benefits do you gain from learning Te Reo Maori? This presentation is a showcase of these questions and the answers I have found. Music by Maise Rika.

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APY Lands- Education

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School Attendance Is Everybody's Business

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There's a lot of doom and gloom about truancy rates in Aboriginal schools around Australia. This educative documentary reveals the large amount of work being done by stakeholders in remote APY Lands communities to ensure students attend school each day.

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What's good for Māori... / Interviews / Videos / Te Kotahitanga - Home - Te Kotahitanga

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"We've been talking about getting a t-shirt printed for a long time, and on the front of the t-shirt it's got, 'What's good for Māori is good for everybody,' but we also need to have on the back of the t-shirt, 'What's good for everybody is not necessarily good for Māori.'

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Transcript

Narrator: "In 2009 Ngaruawahia High School achieved its best ever results in NCEA."

Students: "It was nerve wracking because we didn't know what to expect, we'd been through mock exams but once you got over the initial shock of getting in there, like the first exam is always the hardest. Um, after that it was pretty good, got easier as we went along, um, but throughout the year kind of having the teachers track us it lifted the pressure off our shoulders at least."

"They take a lot of time, a lot of their time, a lot of our time as well, during the intervals and lunch times we go in the library and just catch up on a bit of work. It's pretty good."

"Because last year when I was getting my level ones I was in the target group, which meant that I wasn't going to pass if I didn't do certain stuff. So they like help me get onto course to get some more credits. They took like tutorials to help me get more credits, my maths teacher did, so did my Māori teacher. I passed literacy through her Māori class so they like to push their students forward, they don't want to see us go on the dole."

"Even though I slacked off during the year, they still, they still were willing to help me, they still got faith in me, so yea. Kind of makes you, 'Oh yea sweet if she thinks I can do it, I can do it.'"

"They always like offering tutorials, um, willing to help me out where it's needed. Um, they push me in class, if I sit there and do nothing it's always slamming a book in front of my face to get it done. So, um, I have, they, I have a lot to thank from them because they've helped me, they've really helped me, which is a good thing."

Teacher: "I'll be going back to those staff members and saying, or back to Heads of Departments and saying, why, what's happening around this?"

Robyn Roa (Principal): "My general gratitude to Te Kotahitanga is that it facilitated a person or people and particular skills that dug deep into some of the issues that we wanted to address."

Kimai Huirama (Te Kotahitanga Facilitator): "We wanted to target NCEA Level 1 Māori achievement and aim for a goal of 80% of our, our Māori students would pass at that level. We then looked and we decided to time frame that goal over three years. Last year we set the goal at 60% of our Māori students would achieve at NCEA Level 1. We'd never previously achieved that at our school wide before."

Robyn: "We looked at how could we affect the achievement rates for Māori students across the board. It was quite a difficult task given all three year groups, ah, Year 11, 12 and 13 so we focused on the 11s. And the rationale behind that was if you can get success, initial success, then that's the probably one of the biggest boosts to students self esteem morale, and they can go onto, to feel successful and then success breeds success."

Iti Joyce (Te Kotahitanga Facilitator): "First of all we had to figure it out ourselves, come up with the strategy so that we could support our pedagogical leaders so that they could start supporting their departmental teachers."

Robyn: "And I think too in all honesty most of our models had looked at changing the kids, this model said we actually need to look at ourselves as teachers."

Kimai: "Because of the targets we'd set we, we had to actually start generating our own data and soon we were getting progress reports through the year and not only sharing with our staff and our teachers, but also starting to filter that down to our students. And through our students, um, through to their whanau so quite quickly within the space of a year or a year and a half, students were knowing where they were at. Even their parents were knowing where they were at with their NCEA achievement and it was great."

Robyn: "And we support them by making them aware this is where you guys are at, this is what you need to get in order to succeed."

Kimai: "Sometimes they don't know and if you don't give them opportunities to be successful and to celebrate success then how sad would that be for our students."

Barney Wharakura (Te Kotahitanga Facilitator): "It means our kids know what they need to do to achieve, it means that they have a target to achieve as well as the teachers. Um, the whole school are involved on that focus, um, and achieving those targets. It means that some have to work a little bit harder than others."

Robyn: "Te Kotahitanga is a good thing, it challenges you, they challenge you, they challenge you all the time."

Kimai: "Part of owning the goal is that you bring that data out, the good, the bad and the ugly, and pat yourself on the back on what's going well, but certainly look at what's not going so well and then what do we have to do to change that. So, there were conversations going on at department levels around that. Ah, I also think that prior to Te Kotahitanga we'd had a lot of meetings going on in the schools, but it seemed to be mainly around behaviour of our kids and so that's been a bit of a mind set change. If you don't actually link that back to changing classroom practice, you're not going to be able to meet those targets, there's got to be changes in classroom pedagogy for us to see those changes in our, in our data."

Robyn: "The initial results came in, um, and we were sitting on, in the 70s for the Year 11 cohort, um, it was just mind blowing. You know we, we, we knew we could get our 60, we felt confident about that, but to actually achieve and ultimately achieve a whole group of 77 and Māori students 73, was really, really mind blowing for the staff."

Iti: "But it's not only the students success, teachers have got to taste it too, because when they taste it and they can see it, it gathers momentum."

Robyn: "When we unpack it in such a way that it shares the responsibility then you can actually make some changes. It wasn't like, 'I did it all' or one person did it all, everybody had to do their bit for it to count collectively."

Kimai: "I guess it's maybe made believers out of some of us who didn't believe it could happen. Shows up in the language that staff use, it's all about the, um, repositioning and checking your agency and, um, you know rejecting deficit theorizing, because I guess there were walls there in our own heads that were stopping us from achieving."

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Narrator: "In 2009 Ngaruawahia High School achieved its best ever results in NCEA." Students: "It was nerve wracking because we didn't know what to expect, we'd been through mock exams but once you got over the initial shock of getting in there, like the first exam is always the hardest.

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Taiawatea is the Ngāi Tahu rangatahi fund, which aims to help shape rangatahi who are strong, vibrant champions of Ngāi Tahu culture. It also aims to empower Ngāi Tahu rangatahi to connect and express their leadership in Ngāi Tahutanga.

Rangatahi who are aged 13-25 can apply for funding to start cultural projects aimed at strengthening their Ngāi Tahutanga; and or to support their attendance at regional and national cultural events.

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The Vision: Our dream is to have a vibrant Ngāi Tahu culture. Our goal is that our taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing) will flourish through the passion and energy we have to preserve and strengthen our culture. Cultural Revival Ngāi Tahu culture and traditions help to define who we are and where we have come from...

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A Ngāi Tahu individual stands within their whānau. That whānau lives within a clan, or groups of whānau known as a hapū.

Collectively, in its simplest form, the various hapū come together and unite as an iwi or a tribe. Overlaid on this paradigm is the Papatipu Rūnanga structure. In the case of Ngāi Tahu, 18 regional Papatipu Rūnanga exist to uphold the mana of their people over the land, the sea and the natural resources.

Spread throughout Te Waipounamu each of the 18 rūnanga appoints a tribal member to represent its interests at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, the governing council overseeing the tribe's activities.

Those people that live and participate within the rūnanga community take on the responsibility of keeping the home fires burning. They are part of the continuum that is Ngāi Tahu, they maintain the marae, greet and look after the visitors, bury the dead, help to raise the next generations and keep alive the traditions and stories of their culture.

Each rūnanga has its own governance structure and it is through this mechanism that the collective Ngāi Tahu voice in the region is represented and heard at local government and community level.

No rūnanga is the same, each has opportunities and challenges shaped by the land, the environment, the towns and cities and the people that make the region home. The rūnanga is the face of Ngāi Tahu at regional level, wanting better education for their children, safer communities and less pollution at the beach.

Te Rūnanga was created to manage the collective assets of the tribe and in doing so support rūnanga in a way that allows each of them to exercise rangatiratanga - to determine their own destiny so they can build and sustain their communities as they have done so successfully for generations.

Papatipu Rūnanga

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Papatipu Rūnanga - Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu

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A Ngāi Tahu individual stands within their whānau. That whānau lives within a clan, or groups of whānau known as a hapū. Collectively, in its simplest form, the various hapū come together and unite as an iwi or a tribe. Overlaid on this paradigm is the Papatipu Rūnanga structure.

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The Vision: Our dream is that Ngāi Tahu Whānui enjoy life-long learning that equips them to create their own destiny. The goal is that educational opportunities relevant to our people are accessible and enriching.

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SOCIAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES 2 (1)

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this story contains images of people who've died.] The Government released its 2016 report on Closing the Gap. That's the name of a plan that aims to help Indigenous Australians to live as long as non-Indigenous Australians.

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What if New Zealand Was Never Colonized?

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New Zealand is often overlooked in history class and on Youtube, but not today! What if the island nation was never colonized by the British? How would New Zealand look? Here is one scenario. This was done in collaboration with TestTube. Learn how Powerful New Zealand Is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-2d0Hg1tOo&list=PLS0CO0PT_kEI_kuXdshFDigz9hcFqJIS.

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Who Are The Maori People Of New Zealand?

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Subscribe! http://skr.cm/SubscribeToSeeker Perhaps best known as full face tattoo-bearing warrior natives of New Zealand, the Māori are central to the country's culture and identity. ---------------------------- Check out more Seeker! How Powerful Is New Zealand? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-2d0Hg1tOo ---------------------------- Lissette's Twitter: https://twitter.com/lizzette Join the Seeker community!

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COAG- Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage - 2016 Overview

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Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage COAG Report 2016

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Posted July 06, 2012 06:55:27

Recently released census Indigenous data for 2011 shows that more than 85 per cent of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders live in capital cities and regional towns and work in a range of occupations as truck drivers, tradies, professionals and managers.

These Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people earn wages and salaries or are self-employed, pay taxes, and own or are buying their own homes. Their children attend mainstream public and private schools where they perform like other Australian children.

More than 80 per cent of Indigenous students in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory achieve minimum national standards. There is a significant minority, however, who are failing basic literacy and numeracy tests. And this minority has not improved over the four years since NAPLAN tests began in 2008.

Indigenous students comprise 4.8 per cent of all school students, almost double the Indigenous population (2.5 per cent percentage of the population), according to the 2011 Census estimates.

Higher fertility rates and a lower life expectancy explain only a small part of this disparity. The rapid Indigenous population growth rate evident in the 2011 Census is because virtually all children of intermarriage are identified as Indigenous, which has led to a high proportion of Indigenous students.

Students with an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous parent take pride in both heritages, Indigenous and the other - be it Anglo-Celtic, Chinese, Jewish, or whatever the origin of their parents and grandparents.

Despite the success of most Indigenous Australians, a significant minority continue to miss out on the benefits of Australian life. Indigenous Australians are overrepresented in welfare dependent families, and the high proportion of Indigenous students who fail literacy and numeracy cannot progress to jobs and careers.

In 2008, the Commonwealth reduced Indigenous education targets from 'fix the problem in four years' to 'fix half the problem in 10 years'.

NAPLAN results show that Queensland has made the greatest progress in reducing failure rates, followed by Western Australia, but even these states are far from achieving parity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

The other states and territories are not even on track to achieve the COAG (Council of Australian Governments) target of 'halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students' by 2018.

COAG policies have become a principal obstacle to improving literacy and numeracy because COAG sees 'Indigeneity' as the principal cause of Indigenous student failure.

More than $360 million is being spent on Indigenous-specific 'culturally appropriate' literacy and numeracy programs each year. These programs are not only wasteful but actually counterproductive because they take attention and resources away from classroom instruction.

A recent example is the additional funding of $800,000 to place artists (theatre specialists, puppeteers, visual artists, and circus performers) in schools that do not have the funds to employ full-time qualified teachers for all their students.

It is no coincidence that Queensland, which only spent $850 per student on such programs, has been much more successful than South Australia, which has made no inroads into Indigenous failure despite spending $6,000 per student on Indigenous-specific expenditures.

The highest failure rates are in Indigenous schools - those with more than 75 per cent Indigenous attendance. They enrol some 20,000 students, mainly in bush communities on Indigenous lands that have no private sectors or real jobs, and are hence totally welfare dependent. These schools typically have failure rates of more than 90 per cent.

More than 40 Homelands Learning Centres in the Northern Territory do not have a qualified teacher all days of the week. Only a handful of Indigenous schools such as the Cape York Partnership 'academies' and three schools run by the Queensland Department of Education have introduced rigorous literacy and numeracy instruction, a full primary curriculum, and after-school 'club' activities.

In the few schools with high ethos, where students make progress from day to day and from week to week, attendance booms.

Another 40,000 Indigenous students attend 'residualised' mainstream schools that draw students from low socio-economic backgrounds. Indigenous students sit side by side with non-Indigenous students. Instead of offsetting social disadvantage, these schools are swamped by it, with poor discipline leading to high staff turnover and poor teaching.

Employers complain that graduates from these schools do not have adequate literacy and numeracy. These schools are not a problem of Indigenous education but a national problem.

Governments at all levels are miserably letting down Australian school students; instead, they need to refocus on achieving quality education outcomes so that all students can have better opportunities later in life.
The report Indigenous Education 2012 is available at The Centre For Independent Studies. Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes is a Senior Fellow at the CIS. View her full profile here. Mark Hughes is an independent researcher. View his full profile here.
Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-policy, education

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Poor education is letting Indigenous children down

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Posted July 06, 2012 06:55:27 Recently released census Indigenous data for 2011 shows that more than 85 per cent of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders live in capital cities and regional towns and work in a range of occupations as truck drivers, tradies, professionals and managers.

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An Historical Overview of Aboriginal Education Policies in the Australian Context

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Curricula don't provide for Aboriginal languages

At schools in Western Australia, for example, the school curriculum includes up to three Asian languages, but there is no formal inclusion of any Aboriginal language. If such a language is taught it is by agreement between individual schools and Aboriginal language teachers or speakers [1].

But student numbers are encouraging, with 6,400 WA students studying an Aboriginal language compared to 4,000 students learning Mandarin [1].

Janet Hayden, Nyoongar Elder and language teacher, knows students want to learn an Aboriginal language.

"They wanted more and more, and when we left the teachers all said 'please come back, don't forget us', and that was in a white community. One very distinguished gentleman came up to me and he had tears in his eyes and said I had opened his eyes to Aboriginal culture and what Aboriginal people were all about." [1]

They were just so hungry for the Nyoongar language we taught in school. We taught them the whole program and they just loved it.-Janet Hayden, Nyoongar Elder and language teacher [1]

Video: Reawakening Australia's Aboriginal languages

Students at St John's High School in Western Sydney learn basics of the Wuradjiru language, including animal names and how to address family.

Benefits of teaching an Aboriginal language

Teaching Aboriginal languages increases the esteem and pride of Aboriginal students, and it has a positive impact on their attendance and participation in school [2].

At Woolgoolga High School, in North Coast NSW, all year 7 students are required to learn Gumbaynggirr, a local traditional Aboriginal language. The school's Aboriginal education worker, Jo Hine, has noticed that Woolgoolga's Aboriginal students have become noticeably more confident and "more likely to speak up in class." [3]

Some research indicates that it improves their physical and mental health. People who have lost their identity are quite conflicted.

Not enough teachers

But in 2013, there were only 15 Aboriginal teachers of Aboriginal language in public schools in New South Wales [4], although languages were in a "critical state" and the state was home to more than 200,000 Aboriginal people.

We see the teaching of languages in schools as being critical to the maintenance of Indigenous languages and to the maintenance of our overall cultural identity as Australians.-Andrew Thompson, spokesman Western Australian Education Department [1]

The antidote to intolerance

At Vincentia High School, about 190 kms south of Sydney in NSW, students are taught Dhurga, the language of the Yuin Nation [5].

Classes are compulsory for every student in Year Eight, Indigenous or non-Indigenous. By the time students receive their School Certificate they have undergone 100 hours of Dhurga instruction.

In those 100 hours they will have learnt that Dhurga is one language amongst hundreds of Aboriginal languages and given a different perspective through which to view Australia.

Jonathan Hill, a Dhurga teacher at Vincentia High School, reckons that "this type of education is the antidote to the tide of intolerance that infects the modern mind. By sharing this ancient knowledge with our youth, we are giving them the chance to empathise and engage with our Aboriginal heritage." [5]

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At schools in Western Australia, for example, the school curriculum includes up to three Asian languages, but there is no formal inclusion of any Aboriginal language. If such a language is taught it is by agreement between individual schools and Aboriginal language teachers or speakers [1].

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Tips for teaching Aboriginal students

Many non-Aboriginal teachers do not have a lot of experience teaching and engaging Aboriginal children. To reach them and get them interested in learning, you must sometimes leave behind the textbook solutions you studied.

Know cultural needs

Aboriginal students can avoid direct eye contact to an adult as it is considered rude in Aboriginal culture. When teachers misdiagnose Aboriginal students' classroom behaviour we can speak of 'soft racism'.

Aboriginal children are also less likely to answer questions in the classroom because traditionally, Aboriginal culture has been passed on through the telling of stories; it's not about questions and answers or because they don't like to be the centre of attention.

"I realise that many children might know the answer, but aren't comfortable speaking up. Instead, I try to incorporate more ' hands on' learning and a greater variety of practical experiences into our lessons," explains Aboriginal teacher Matthew Pinchbeck of NSW.

Use story telling with visual cues in your teaching to support Aboriginal students learn better, rather than having them read and process materials directly.

Aboriginal students may have difficulty letting you know when they don't know something or are struggling to understand, due to a sensitivity to feeling shamed. They will keep quiet when something is too difficult to avoid 'getting it wrong'. Check with them that they are understanding and absorbing without them feeling shame if they are not.

Bear in mind that many Aboriginal children had early, often untreated ear infections which might have lead to hearing loss and explain why they are not listening or speaking loudly.

Parents might not be the most significant adults in a child's life because many Aboriginal adults share raising children in a community.

Don't expect them to underperform

If Aboriginal student numbers are low, teachers might ignore Aboriginal students, expect them to deliver low results or victimise them.

"I dreamt big," says Aboriginal gold medal winner and politician Nova Peris. "Most people would have looked at an Aboriginal girl from the Territory, with its statistics of alcohol abuse, youth suicide, domestic violence, imprisonment rates and substandard education, and point to every reason why I should not succeed. But I was determined to be successful."

Sky News international editor and Wiradjuri man, Stan Grant, remembers: "Aboriginal kids like me were too often denied opportunity, ignored or held captive to the low expectations of others. Indeed at age 14 I, along with my black cousins and mates, was encouraged to leave school, our principal said there was no meaningful place for us."

Instead, have high expectations. "I want them to reach for the stars," says principal Paul Eaglestone from Looma Remote Community School in WA. "We're all about student gain. I prefer high targets, even if sometimes students do well but don't quite get there." The success of his school proves him right.

"I give the students examples," explains Len Yarran from Balga Senior High School (WA). "I tell them there are people who came from alcoholic households, suicides in their family, backgrounds where there was no hope, and they have changed their lives. Some of them are in really influential positions."

High expectations = high outcomes

Children of Asian background are often perceived to be "smarter" than their other classmates. Researchers found that they enter schools with no significant academic advantage, but outperformed their non-Asian classmates significantly in Grade 5 .

They found Asian families ("Tiger Mums") were more likely to set higher expectations for their children. Greater effort from the students, and not advantages, contributed to academic success.

Similarly, if teachers set high expectations for Aboriginal students they can motivate them to succeed.

"Classmates who were straight-A students were never told they couldn't do medicine. I was a straight-A student but I was black," recalls Dr Kris Rallah-Baker, Australia's first eye doctor. A careers adviser told a young Kris that he would not get into medicine .

Relate examples to their environment and community

Teaching Aboriginal students needs to convey a "relatedness" , which is a key feature of Aboriginal world views. It stems from the connectedness to every living thing, which is the foundation of Aboriginal tradition, culture and spirituality.

Including Aboriginal stories and achievements also helps Aboriginal students feel more valued and accepted, and boosts their sense of identity.

When your lessons are relevant to students and applicable to everyday activities results can improve significantly. This sense of relatedness helps them answer the question "Who am I" and "Where do I fit in", rather than "What do I want to be?" .

Aboriginal children look at this macro view of the world before narrowing it down to the micro . Students would look around and notice who is not there rather than who is there.

The Teaching Indigenous Maths Education (TIME) program at Queensland University of Technology related mathematics classes to everyday tasks such as shopping and sports. Students were much more engaged, and some gained A-level results for the first time while none received an E-level .

Will Lutwyche taught for 2 years in remote Tennant Creek, NT. He learned that in order to engage his students he had to bring local stories into the classroom.

"In the end their stories really drove the history unit, along with the stories of community members. It was more relevant and integral to their lives, and their families and the town of Tennant Creek. They engaged well with it and started to reflect deeply and use critical thinking, which is not always easy to do without relevant content."

Help them fake power to become powerful

In the TED talk below, social scientist Amy Cuddy reveals typical body postures of people who feel inferior and the messages this sends to their brain.

By faking a posture of power, even if for just two minutes, the brain receives signals of more power which reduces cortisol (the stress hormone) and increases testosterone (the hormone of power).

Why not invite Aboriginal students to fake these postures until they, like a student Amy coached, become more self-confident? (Video runs for approx. 20 minutes)

Consider intergenerational trauma

Aboriginal history is horrific in many places, for example assimilation policies or the Stolen Generations, and parents can pass on their trauma to their children which then becomes intergenerational. Teachers need to recognise this trauma when they assess the choices Aboriginal parents or students make.

Some Aboriginal parents don't want the Stolen Generations topic taught at school at all as they fear it can open wounds for the children as their aunties, uncles, mothers, fathers or grandparents might be affected. Most kids already know through their families.

Effects of the Stolen Generations still have implications on each student's life. When teaching about this chapter, teachers need to protect students' privacy and not expect them to talk about their personal stories.

Be aware of a greater sense of autonomy

Aboriginal children have been raised to be autonomous individuals with a right to express their needs and opinions and have them taken seriously. But a strong character can get them into trouble in a classroom .

Include community spirit

Aboriginal students are more used to working for the collective good rather than focusing on individual achievement. It is foreign for them to be tested as 'individuals' for their knowledge, when their usual context is seeing what the group can achieve collectively .

Looma Remote Community School, about 120 km south-east of Derby, WA, uses a high level of community involvement and togetherness as a crucial factor to its success in education. Every morning, students, and often parents, play 'heads and tails' in morning assembly. Parents and carers often join sack races and tugs of war at sports carnivals and eat lunch with children.

Remember English is a foreign language

For many Aboriginal children English is their second, third or fourth language. Teachers should explain things in more than one way and more than once to enable Aboriginal students to understand and learn. In Aboriginal culture knowledge was passed on through repetitive story-telling.

If possible, Aboriginal children should be taught in their first language. "Learning to read and write requires the brain to be neurologically developmentally primed," explains speech pathologist Mary-Ruth Mendel . "Children's brains need to be stimulated in the first language that they speak."

Bilingual programs and children's textbooks help Aboriginal children to live in two worlds and improve literacy rates.

Story: Cultural knowledge a must for language teachers

Here are some insights from Jasmin Martin, an Australian teacher living in Germany :

"I teach English here to the locals, and I see that the same approach that you described has to be taken with each student of a second or third or fourth language.

"Even Germans are a little apprehensive of English and the domination of English within their own language and dialects. I could not imagine trying to teach English to Germans, without knowing any German or having any sense for the way they think or live.

"Likewise, I could not imagine teaching English to Aboriginal communities in Australia, without knowing anything about their culture, language and what makes them tick, even if I have lived in Australia all my life and also lived up north in Darwin for many years."

Promote Aboriginality

For Aboriginal students to have a full and productive life, they need to receive an education that enhances and promotes their Aboriginality. Teachers can encourage cultural pride through programs such as, among others, music and dance.

Some students are trying to find their identity and what opportunities are there for them, and sometimes schools are the only safe place for them to do that. Teachers can support students by encouraging them to have pride in culture and with inspirational role models.

Address racism and use an open dialogue in a positive way: "This is the past; however, you are the people that can change that, this is how things have been done in the past, but you can make Australia a better place."

With boosted confidence and positive influences suspensions and detentions will drop and attendance rates increase.

Give students more chances

Many behavioural problems can be managed by taking the time to listen and giving students a "second, third and forth" chance .

Consider broken homes

Many Aboriginal students come from dysfunctional families where they need to dodge domestic violence or alcohol abuse. Many have emotional problems that materialise when they reach their mid-teens. Providing pastoral care lets them develop trust and feel safe and valued .

In remote communities, some Aboriginal kids might not have been taught values at home. If teachers spend half an hour teaching basic norms they have a much better chance to connect with their students .

There is a lack of positive role models for Aboriginal students, especially boys who have no father figures in their lives through death or separation. They need basic strategies for their immediate needs, for example extra attention, food or a talk about what happened the previous night at home.

Offer homework classes

Students (especially of remote communities) don't have computers at home, sometimes not even a desk.

Story: Education NRL-style: One metre at a time

Cherbourg State School in Queensland has implemented a popular reading program borrowing some ideas from National Rugby League (NRL) rules.

Each classroom is divided into 4 NRL teams. Students gain 'metres' on a virtual field for their attendance, work ethic and behaviour.

If a team has 100% attendance for any given day it automatically makes 10 metres.

Further metres can be made if the children read magazines or do puzzles of a night at home.

There are also physical activities played outside for extra metres.

"[The program] is about boosting numeracy, literacy, behaviour and the idea of team building to reach and end goal," says Steve Belsham, Australian Rugby League development officer

How to create a culturally responsive classroom

"It's very easy to say I want to have a culturally responsive classroom but to know what that looks like was a bit more difficult than I thought," admits Will Lutwyche who taught Aboriginal kids for 2 years in remote Tennant Creek, NT.

He found the following components to work well:

Build trust. "You need to get to know the kids really well before you can [teach]," says Will. "There needs to be mutual trust to establish your legitimacy. They can't gauge your authenticity straight off."

Acknowledgement of Country. Before a class, acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where you teach.

Embrace diversity. Honour students' diversity within Aboriginal culture by letting them mark their nation, language group or moiety on a Aboriginal Australia wall map. Note that within the same community there might also be cultural ceremonial differences, kinship differences and totem differences. What works in one community most likely won't work in another.

Liaise with Elders. Run your curriculum ideas by Elders first. They can also introduce you to contacts in the community and people who can speak to the class.

Invite community members. Get community members into the classroom to share their stories and have a yarning circle.

Explore family trees. Will found it effective to explore children's family trees.

Let students teach. Have students run a lesson, which is often something they've never experienced before and fosters their self-esteem.

Use local resources. To support community context, use local resources that align with the curriculum. Will found written resources relevant to Tennant Creek buried deeply in books, and a DVD about the Coniston Massacre which occurred just south of Tennant Creek.

Promote calmness. Will found it very helpful to introduce routines, such as doing vocabulary at the beginning of each lesson, and then quiet reading or writing, or a bit of mindfulness practice to calm students down.

Don't yell. "Once kids realise I'm not going to get angry with them, they settle down," says Will.

Prepare students for walking in two worlds

In some parts of Australia Aboriginal people have "a huge hesitation" about the embrace of Western education, according to Aboriginal elder Noel Pearson . Many Aboriginal people are afraid of losing their children to a bigger world, and their children losing their identity and culture.

Educational systems designed to Western standards give Aboriginal people little to motivate them to have faith--on the contrary, many feel disrespected and marginalised. Academics think of Aboriginal people as "guests in the dominant educational domain". This 'guest paradigm' defines the relationship that Aboriginal people have with 'Eurocentric' education systems.

Teaching both worlds might be the answer to these problems.

Aboriginal leaders try to foster "a [cultural] centre of gravity" in their children so that they are able to "operate in two worlds" . Only when children accommodated both western and traditional Aboriginal culture would they be able to build their socio-economic strengths and maintain, revive and re-double the strength of their cultural determination, Mr Pearson said.

The Boonderu Music Academy in Roebourne, Western Australia, recognises that Aboriginal culture is based on song and story telling and encourages kids to enjoy school through the use of music first and worry about grades later. This approach entices students to go to school, validated by an attendance rate of 80%.

"My generation have learned now, that to live in this society, we must walk in two worlds," says Kendall Smith, one of the mentors and music teachers at the academy. "We must learn to adapt to be white man world, in that way, but then as soon as we get home, doing what our old people have done for 45,000 years -- going out bush, hunting, singing law and ceremony songs... that is the key to the survival of our Aboriginal people.

"While everyone else was learning how to drink and do drugs, we sort of kept to ourselves and played music. We were trying to find another way," Smith said.

Story: Better marks at a community-owned school

The Aboriginal and Islander Independent Community School, also known as "Murri School" after the name of Aboriginal people of Queensland, operates since 25 years in Brisbane .

The school is community-owned, develops its own policies and decides on teaching directions.

Unlike most mainstream independent schools the Murri School does not charge parents expensive fees. Since many Aboriginal parents are unemployed the school only charges a small fee for food. It provides students with three meals a day and transport to and from school.

Because of this financial and practical help the Murri School does not have any issues with students not attending school, unlike many mainstream schools with Aboriginal students.

Students are thriving and score well in the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) exam.

"Our children achieve higher in the tests after being schooled in our system then they do after being schooled through Education Queensland," says Tiga Bayles, board president, Aboriginal and Islander Independent Community School Brisbane.

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Ways of teaching & engaging Aboriginal students

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Teaching Aboriginal students requires sensitivity for their special needs and knowledge about Aboriginal cultural protocols. Successful programs relate content to real life and work around Aboriginal parents' limitations.

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Education

Aboriginal students choosing higher studies are a minority, and likely to be older than their peers. Experts want to see universities tap into the potential of Aboriginal organisations to increase student numbers.

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Selected statistics

Percentage of Aboriginal students who completed their bachelor degree in 2006 (non-Aboriginal students: 73.9%) [19].

Percentage of Aboriginal students who complete a university degree [4].

Percentage of Aboriginal students who complete a PhD [5].

Number of Aboriginal people with a university degree in Australia in 2014 [13]. Same figure in 2010: 25,000 [11]; in 2006: 20,000; in 1991: 3,600 [6].

Number of Aboriginal students enrolled in universities in 2015 (1.6% of domestic enrolments) [19].

Average annual growth of Aboriginal enrolments [19].

Percentage of Australian university staff in 2011 who was Aboriginal [7].

Growth of Aboriginal students in higher education between 2001 and 2011 [8].

Increase in Aboriginal students attending university compared to 2008; same increase for non-Aboriginal students: 37% [19].

Percentage of Aboriginal Australians who have a post-school qualification. Same figure for New Zealand Maori: 85%, for US Native Americans: 65% [12].

Number of university applications from Aboriginal students in 2011; in 2010: 888 [11].

Percentage of Year 12 Aboriginal students who were eligible for university; figure for non-Aboriginal students: 46% [15].

Percentage of Aboriginal students in the top NAPLAN quartile who want to go to university; figure for non-Aboriginal students: 72% [18].

Increase in the number of Aboriginal students graduating each year since 2010; increase for non-Aboriginal students: 21% [19].

Aboriginal students in tertiary studies are growing in numbers but are still underrepresented at universities. Their share is only around 1.3%. Photo: mexikids, sxc.hu

Aboriginal students in higher education

Statistics about the total number of Aboriginal students participating in higher studies vary significantly depending on the agency that's gathering the data and due to restructuring and shifting responsibilities.[15]

As a result, data is inconsistent, and sometimes missing, even from major sources of Aboriginal higher education data. Political and racial values of statistical gatherers and framers of questions further influence the data gathered.[15]

There is agreement however that enrolment, retention, and completion rates are significantly lower than those of non-Aboriginal students, with Aboriginal students making up only 1% of university enrolments in 2013 [15], way below the 3% population rate.

The total number of Aboriginal students has increased by 20.8% from 2001 to 2011 [1]. But because rates for non-Aboriginal students have also increased, their proportion of total university students has remained at only about 1.3%.

A government report found in 2006 that only 4.9% of Aboriginal people aged 20-24 years attended university [1], a fifth of the rate of non-Aboriginal students (23.9%).

Numbers are also low because in relation to higher education specific groups of the Aboriginal populations are under-represented, such as women as primary carers, students living in remote locations, young men, people in the prison system and people with disabilities.[15] In addition, some students choose not to identify as Aboriginal for a range of reasons, for example to avoid racism.

Fact The first Aboriginal Bachelor degree student graduated in 1966. [19]

Gender

Total number of students

Commencing university

Completing university

Figures shown for 2013 [15].
As the table above shows, Aboriginal students experience a one-in-three dropout rate from university, compared to one-in-five for all domestic students, and overall completion rates are 22% less than for non-Aboriginal students.

University

Total Aboriginal enrolment

Total student enrolment

Aboriginal share

Figures shown for 2014 [16][17].

The only one

Tania Major, 2007 Young Australian of the Year, was the only person in her school class to go to university. She's from Kowanyama in Queensland's Cape York, and remembers her class [10].

"I'm also the only girl in my class who did not have a child at 15.

Of the boys in my class, seven have been incarcerated, two for murder, rape and assault.

Of the 15, there are only three of us who are not alcoholics.

And one of the saddest things I must report is that four of my classmates have already committed suicide."

Why Aboriginal children aren't choosing university

A large-scale longitudinal study by University of Newcastle in 2017 found that high-achieving Aboriginal children are less likely to want to go to university. [18]

While 72% of non-Aboriginal students in the top NAPLAN quartile aspired to go to university, only 43% of Aboriginal students in the same quartile said they wanted to go. Numbers in the other quartiles were about the same for both groups.

On top of the challenges every young person faces when entering university, for example costs, there are some which are unique to Aboriginal students: [16][18]

Connection to land. While the majority of Aboriginal children live in major cities and regional areas, those who do live in remote communities are often reluctant to leave because their connection to land is very important and they are deeply committed to their family and community.

Financing university life. A high proportion of Aboriginal people come from a low socio-economic background. Being able to pay for their accommodation, fees, textbooks and general living is a big ask for many students. Many Aboriginal children also have significant financial obligations in their family. And finding supportive programs or scholarships can be a challenge in itself.

Fear of being a minority. It is clear to many Aboriginal youth that if they decide to go to university they will be part of a minority group which might be exposed to racism and discrimination.

Learned low expectations. Because many Australians carry the myth that that Aboriginal students achieve less, or fail, students themselves made this thinking their own. Some call it an "aspirational impediment" which makes students believe they couldn't get into the best universities in Australia, but the reality is they can and they succeed.

They are the first. Entering university, or in some cases even secondary school, is often a first experience for the families of Aboriginal students. This means there is no family or community experience to guide them which makes the prospect of going to university very daunting.

Immediate work is more rewarding. When Aboriginal students have to decide whether to go to university a prospect of immediate paid work, or studying at TAFE, might appear more appealing, especially if these are available locally.

Not trusting government institutions. Aboriginal students may have a deep distrust of any government institution, including universities.

Aboriginal students pick relevant courses

Aboriginal students tend to pick courses that are relevant to their lives as Aboriginal people.

"If Indigenous students study, they tend to study a course they see having direct benefit to their communities such as law, health or education," says Dr Chris Matthews, an applied mathematician from the Griffith School of Environment [9].

His statement is confirmed by the university courses with the highest completion numbers for Aboriginal students: Society and Culture, Health, and Education. [15]

Dr Matthews also remembers how a student commented that science education "didn't talk about how Indigenous people have knowledge of animals. They make it sound as though white people discovered everything". Students feel that current science education disregards more than 40,000 years of valuable Aboriginal knowledge.

Course completion rates are lower

Despite increasing course enrolments and commencements Aboriginal students completed less courses, the report said. In 2009 Aboriginal students had an overall degree completion rate of less than 50% [2], while 72% of their non-Indigenous peers completed their studies.

Most Aboriginal students cite financial and academic reasons for leaving university. "Indigenous students are more likely to be female, to be of lower socio-economic status, and to be older," explains a survey [2]. Many also have children which in turn increases financial pressures.

I wasn't the brightest student, but I was determined to push through to Year 12. When I got there, there were only three of us left.-David Peachey, National Rugby League star [3]

Further findings of the government report include:

Of the total 813,896 domestic students enrolled in 2009, 10,440 identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Aboriginal students were more likely to be over 20 years of age than non-Aboriginal students.

The largest single group of Aboriginal students enrolled was women aged over 25 years (39.8% of Aboriginal student enrolments).

Diverse access to higher studies

Aboriginal higher studies students enter university in a variety of ways. Some do "because they knew someone else who did it" [1].

Non-Aboriginal students, by contrast, enter university mainly based on their secondary or previous higher education attainment (82%, compared to 46% of Aboriginal students).

Aboriginal students were just as satisfied with their overall university experience as other students [2].

Universities should tap into community knowledge

Asked how to improve student enrolment numbers, Aboriginal lawyer Prof Larissa Behrendt believes that "there's a role universities could be playing in going more deeply into schools at earlier years and building up capacity around literacy, numeracy and science" [1]. Literacy rates among Aboriginal people generally are very low and lowest in remote communities.

Behrendt suggests that universities target people involved in Aboriginal community organisations. Their skills set could be complemented, or their work taken as a pathway to help Aboriginal students move to higher education.

When we have a bright kid [we see] people say 'Go for a traineeship' where they could say instead 'you're good at science, you could be an engineer'. -Prof Larissa Behrendt, Aboriginal lawyer [1]

Fact Batchelor Institute is Australia's only dedicated Aboriginal tertiary institution. It offers higher education courses to students from around Australia. www.batchelor.edu.au

Aboriginal students in tertiary studies are growing in numbers but are still underrepresented at universities. Their share is only around 1.3%. Photo: mexikids, sxc.hu

Aboriginal students in higher education

Statistics about the total number of Aboriginal students participating in higher studies vary significantly depending on the agency that's gathering the data and due to restructuring and shifting responsibilities.[15]

As a result, data is inconsistent, and sometimes missing, even from major sources of Aboriginal higher education data. Political and racial values of statistical gatherers and framers of questions further influence the data gathered.[15]

There is agreement however that enrolment, retention, and completion rates are significantly lower than those of non-Aboriginal students, with Aboriginal students making up only 1% of university enrolments in 2013 [15], way below the 3% population rate.

The total number of Aboriginal students has increased by 20.8% from 2001 to 2011 [1]. But because rates for non-Aboriginal students have also increased, their proportion of total university students has remained at only about 1.3%.

A government report found in 2006 that only 4.9% of Aboriginal people aged 20-24 years attended university [1], a fifth of the rate of non-Aboriginal students (23.9%).

Numbers are also low because in relation to higher education specific groups of the Aboriginal populations are under-represented, such as women as primary carers, students living in remote locations, young men, people in the prison system and people with disabilities.[15] In addition, some students choose not to identify as Aboriginal for a range of reasons, for example to avoid racism.

Fact The first Aboriginal Bachelor degree student graduated in 1966. [19]
Figures shown for 2013 [15].

Gender

Total number of students

Commencing university

Completing university

As the table above shows, Aboriginal students experience a one-in-three dropout rate from university, compared to one-in-five for all domestic students, and overall completion rates are 22% less than for non-Aboriginal students.
Figures shown for 2014 [16][17].

University

Total Aboriginal enrolment

Total student enrolment

Aboriginal share

The only one

Tania Major, 2007 Young Australian of the Year, was the only person in her school class to go to university. She's from Kowanyama in Queensland's Cape York, and remembers her class [10].

"I'm also the only girl in my class who did not have a child at 15.

Of the boys in my class, seven have been incarcerated, two for murder, rape and assault.

Of the 15, there are only three of us who are not alcoholics.

And one of the saddest things I must report is that four of my classmates have already committed suicide."

Why Aboriginal children aren't choosing university

A large-scale longitudinal study by University of Newcastle in 2017 found that high-achieving Aboriginal children are less likely to want to go to university. [18]

While 72% of non-Aboriginal students in the top NAPLAN quartile aspired to go to university, only 43% of Aboriginal students in the same quartile said they wanted to go. Numbers in the other quartiles were about the same for both groups.

On top of the challenges every young person faces when entering university, for example costs, there are some which are unique to Aboriginal students: [16][18]

Connection to land. While the majority of Aboriginal children live in major cities and regional areas, those who do live in remote communities are often reluctant to leave because their connection to land is very important and they are deeply committed to their family and community.

Financing university life. A high proportion of Aboriginal people come from a low socio-economic background. Being able to pay for their accommodation, fees, textbooks and general living is a big ask for many students. Many Aboriginal children also have significant financial obligations in their family. And finding supportive programs or scholarships can be a challenge in itself.

Fear of being a minority. It is clear to many Aboriginal youth that if they decide to go to university they will be part of a minority group which might be exposed to racism and discrimination.

Learned low expectations. Because many Australians carry the myth that that Aboriginal students achieve less, or fail, students themselves made this thinking their own. Some call it an "aspirational impediment" which makes students believe they couldn't get into the best universities in Australia, but the reality is they can and they succeed.

They are the first. Entering university, or in some cases even secondary school, is often a first experience for the families of Aboriginal students. This means there is no family or community experience to guide them which makes the prospect of going to university very daunting.

Immediate work is more rewarding. When Aboriginal students have to decide whether to go to university a prospect of immediate paid work, or studying at TAFE, might appear more appealing, especially if these are available locally.

Not trusting government institutions. Aboriginal students may have a deep distrust of any government institution, including universities.

Aboriginal students pick relevant courses

Aboriginal students tend to pick courses that are relevant to their lives as Aboriginal people.

"If Indigenous students study, they tend to study a course they see having direct benefit to their communities such as law, health or education," says Dr Chris Matthews, an applied mathematician from the Griffith School of Environment [9].

His statement is confirmed by the university courses with the highest completion numbers for Aboriginal students: Society and Culture, Health, and Education. [15]

Dr Matthews also remembers how a student commented that science education "didn't talk about how Indigenous people have knowledge of animals. They make it sound as though white people discovered everything". Students feel that current science education disregards more than 40,000 years of valuable Aboriginal knowledge.

Course completion rates are lower

Despite increasing course enrolments and commencements Aboriginal students completed less courses, the report said. In 2009 Aboriginal students had an overall degree completion rate of less than 50% [2], while 72% of their non-Indigenous peers completed their studies.

Most Aboriginal students cite financial and academic reasons for leaving university. "Indigenous students are more likely to be female, to be of lower socio-economic status, and to be older," explains a survey [2]. Many also have children which in turn increases financial pressures.

I wasn't the brightest student, but I was determined to push through to Year 12. When I got there, there were only three of us left.-David Peachey, National Rugby League star [3]

Further findings of the government report include:

Of the total 813,896 domestic students enrolled in 2009, 10,440 identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Aboriginal students were more likely to be over 20 years of age than non-Aboriginal students.

The largest single group of Aboriginal students enrolled was women aged over 25 years (39.8% of Aboriginal student enrolments).

Diverse access to higher studies

Aboriginal higher studies students enter university in a variety of ways. Some do "because they knew someone else who did it" [1].

Non-Aboriginal students, by contrast, enter university mainly based on their secondary or previous higher education attainment (82%, compared to 46% of Aboriginal students).

Aboriginal students were just as satisfied with their overall university experience as other students [2].

Universities should tap into community knowledge

Asked how to improve student enrolment numbers, Aboriginal lawyer Prof Larissa Behrendt believes that "there's a role universities could be playing in going more deeply into schools at earlier years and building up capacity around literacy, numeracy and science" [1]. Literacy rates among Aboriginal people generally are very low and lowest in remote communities.

Behrendt suggests that universities target people involved in Aboriginal community organisations. Their skills set could be complemented, or their work taken as a pathway to help Aboriginal students move to higher education.

When we have a bright kid [we see] people say 'Go for a traineeship' where they could say instead 'you're good at science, you could be an engineer'. -Prof Larissa Behrendt, Aboriginal lawyer [1]

Fact Batchelor Institute is Australia's only dedicated Aboriginal tertiary institution. It offers higher education courses to students from around Australia. www.batchelor.edu.au

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aboriginal students in higher studies at university

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Education Aboriginal students choosing higher studies are a minority, and likely to be older than their peers. Experts want to see universities tap into the potential of Aboriginal organisations to increase student numbers. Close this Get key foundational knowledge about Aboriginal culture in a fun and engaging way.

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Barriers include inappropriate teaching materials and a lack of Aboriginal role models. Aboriginal education requires connection to communities and informed parents.

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Aboriginal Literacy and Numeracy - Statistics and programs

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Aboriginal Literacy and Numeracy - Statistics and programs

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Literacy rates among Aboriginal students are lowest in remote communities. Reasons include low literacy of the parents and poor school attendance. Initiatives like the Accelerated Literacy Program try to bring literacy to a similar level to that of their non-Aboriginal peers.

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Education

Aboriginal people in small towns in NSW are overwhelmed by hopelessness, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, child crime. "You name it, we've got it."

Is education a way out?

Close this

Wishing you knew more about Aboriginal culture? Search no more.

Get key foundational knowledge about Aboriginal culture in a fun and engaging way.

This is no ordinary resource: It includes a fictional story, quizzes, crosswords and even a treasure hunt.
Stop feeling bad about not knowing. Make it fun to know better.
Sold! Show me how No, thank you

By Michael Anderson

You name it, we've got it

Screams of pain and fear piercing the night. Children roaming dark streets afraid of home where sexual assault awaits. Parents taking money to let their children be abused.

A snapshot of Aboriginal life in several small towns in northwestern New South Wales overwhelmed by hopelessness, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, child crime - you name it, we've got it.

Teenage girls deliberately getting pregnant to collect the government's $4,000 bonus, then neglecting the babies because they don't have the caring skills.

Many Aboriginal women on anti-depressants and getting weekly psychiatric counselling by telephone. I'm told they couldn't survive without it.

A pharmacist closing down and leaving after several break-ins. Teachers posted to the area burning out within a year. A youngster saying he aspires to be on the dole when he grows up.

Five ten and 11-year-old boys recently breaking into a long-abandoned store by kicking in gable and ceiling panels, nearly electrocuting themselves. One found holding on for dear life to a ceiling fan while his brother cried in fear for him.

Towns with bars on shop windows looking like prison compounds and many abandoned buildings rotting away.

"We'll be here a long time"

It pains me as an Aboriginal leader to write of these things. But they need to be said if we're to have any hope of turning things around.

And don't expect governments to help us try to do that. A study has found that only eight cents of every dollar spent on "Aboriginal affairs" has ever reached the people on the ground.

The bottom line of government policy still reflects the 1937 conference of federal and state governments that decided to breed the colour out of Aborigines. Minutes of that conference are in the national archives and can be read at sydney.indymedia.org.au.

The crucial quote from those minutes is:

This Conference believes that the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end.-1937 Conference paper

The aim was-and I contend still is-to make us disappear, to keep a few of us as museum exhibits and tout our culture internationally for white gain.

Well, we're not disappearing, and as a wise old man told me years ago, "Son, be patient, we'll be here a long time after the white man's gone."

And he was right.

Bleak future for young Aboriginal children

Recent media reports had up to a fifth of the whites moving out of the Murray-Darling Basin. In many western towns more than half of the children in kindergartens are Aborigines.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported recently that whites are taking children out of public schools because of the dominance of Aboriginal children and the level of racism increasing.

We are having several times as many children as whites. Maybe that is scaring them?

But I worry about those children. At least half, and closer to 60% of the 420,000 of us are aged from 15 to 25. And most of these youngsters face bleak futures: poor schooling, poor employment prospects, poor health, dysfunctional families.

I fear that the pent-up anger and frustration of these young people will explode and when it does we will see carnage on a scale unprecedented in this country, with our people copping the worst of it.

Where are the young leaders?

We Elders have been too busy with the struggle to groom new leaders to succeed us. That leaves these restive youngsters practically leaderless, cut off from their Aboriginal roots while not fitting into white society, either-people without an identity, without a cultural home.

Many who managed against the odds to acquire strong work skills and sought jobs in Sydney or other cities just couldn't take the racism that hit them there and returned to hopeless rural lives.

Call a spade a spade: this is an apartheid country in all but name.

We need to bring up young people with purpose, passionately loyal to their communities, with a sense of belonging to their traditional country, with skills needed to assert themselves in our time while drawing strength from their heritage.

I don't see that kind of education happening for Aboriginal youngsters anywhere across Australia.

Government "buys" many of our brightest young people into the civil service even before they finish their studies and usually they are lost to us forever as they join the mainstream of mortgage slavery.

Who can blame them? Better that than doing it tough or unemployed in Goodooga, Moree, Brewarrina, Walgett or Dubbo.

Make Aborigines excited about education

The forced assimilation to the white system that followed the genocidal colonial invasion gives no regard to our culture, the oldest living one in the world. In the education of our children no attempt is made to integrate the old with the new.

The aftermath of the invasion is whitewashed. Our dispossession is the root cause of the Third World conditions we live under in one of the wealthiest countries.

Our children's school attendance rate is abysmal, their grades are far below average. The system sets young Aborigines up to stay life-long under-achievers.

We need to get young Aborigines excited about education again and break them out of their "what's the use" lethargy that has resulted from the failure of short-sighted governments to develop and promote the bush.

My vision: A school teaching both ways

I don't claim to have all the answers for Aborigines everywhere, but my vision is to set up a cross-cultural school for youngsters aged 12 to 18. It wouldn't be the kind of school any government would fund, you can be sure of that. We'd have to get private sponsors on board. So, let's have your ideas.

I am fortunate-or perhaps guided by the Old Ones?-to be farming 87,000 acres of my ancestors' country across the NSW/Qld border near Goodooga and Hebel.

It's an area rich in sacred sites and Dreaming stories. Many parts are still pristine natural.

I want this school on this land to have all mod cons and to produce broadly educated young people conversant with old and new ways, confident about the future, proudly Aboriginal and keen to lead. Ultimately I want the school to be a beacon and a pilot across Aboriginal Australia.

There are not many of us and good or bad news travels fast and far among us. What would work here, would work elsewhere.

I am the leader of the 3,000-strong Euahlayi tribe and elected spokesman for the 16 clans making up the Gumilaroi nation. Through my national political activities I am well connected and respected among Elders nationwide.

At my invitation they would be willing to come to teach languages and culture and to use their influence to recruit Aboriginal teachers. Many teachers have told me they would jump at the chance to work at such a school.

My vision of an school for young Aboriginal kids

Here's my vision of what goes on there:

Rise at dawn and go to the bank of the river running through this property to study tracks. What bird, what animal, what insect, what falling twig made this mark? Training the power of observation that works even in a city suburb-what is out of place in my surroundings?

A daily hour in the students' Aboriginal languages, taught by Elders. Elders across the nation are especially keen on this because our languages, and with them our cultural knowledge, are disappearing.

Obviously Western subjects like the three R's, English, natural sciences, computer skills, Aboriginal Australian history.

Woodwork, metalwork, bushcraft, farming skills.

Australian and international politics.

I want graduates equally capable at building a fence and standing up to bullying police, equally capable at arguing the toss with government officials and teaching lore, cooking a meal and minding kids, understanding what makes the white system tick and how Australia fits into the international scheme of things.

Our message needs to get out into the world. Although Australia has signed up to nearly all of them, it breaches with impunity just about every United Nations provision even vaguely related to human rights. We need the kind of international scrutiny and pressure put on Australia that ultimately overthrew apartheid in South Africa.

Ultimately the hope is to attract a TAFE to the same area to teach the rural technical and rural managerial skills needed for life in the bush.

Probably not the kind of curriculum to enthuse [Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd or [Minister for Indigenous Affairs] Jenny Macklin but as a private school it will hopefully qualify for the same kind of government funding as other private schools do in Australia.

To nip the usual suspicions in the bud: I have no pecuniary interest in this project. My farming income sustains my extended family and me and suffices to occasionally employ local people and to support local charitable, sporting and other community activities.

About the author

Michael Anderson is the last survivor of the four 1972 founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra.

He is a leader of the 3,000-strong Euahlayi tribe, one of the 16 that make up the big Gumilaroi nation whose country is in northwest New South Wales and southwest Queensland.
Contact details:

Michael Anderson
Phone 02 6829 6355
Fax 02 6829 6375
PO Box 55, Goodooga, NSW 2831
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

By Michael Anderson

This Conference believes that the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end.-1937 Conference paper

And he was right.

Rise at dawn and go to the bank of the river running through this property to study tracks. What bird, what animal, what insect, what falling twig made this mark? Training the power of observation that works even in a city suburb-what is out of place in my surroundings?

A daily hour in the students' Aboriginal languages, taught by Elders. Elders across the nation are especially keen on this because our languages, and with them our cultural knowledge, are disappearing.

Obviously Western subjects like the three R's, English, natural sciences, computer skills, Aboriginal Australian history.

Woodwork, metalwork, bushcraft, farming skills.

Australian and international politics.

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